


The House Is Quiet Now

by sad_bi_cowboy



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Reminiscing, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29192769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_bi_cowboy/pseuds/sad_bi_cowboy
Summary: Twenty years with Will was more than Hannibal knew he deserved. He didn’t really believe that there was a God - at least, not in the sense that an all powerful deity would concern themselves with the follies of a single man - but Will being taken from him felt like a divine intervention, if ever there was one. And this one was particularly horrid.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	The House Is Quiet Now

**Author's Note:**

> My playlist for writing this...  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr5UNKmb6Wo&t=720s  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axnQugFtB0g

The house is quiet now. 

Not that it had been loud before - two grown men can only produce so much sound as they move throughout the house. The most noise they ever got was when the dogs would find something outside particularly interesting and make sure that their opinions on it were well known. Or when they got distracted in the kitchen and their smoke detector went off, which would in turn set the dogs howling. 

Their modest house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires had always had the ambient sounds inherent to two people in love living in it: water pouring over dirty dishes, music playing from the speakers in the kitchen as pans sizzled, showers running, books stacked on coffee tables, the sounds of the dogs’ nails on the hardwood floors, sheets rustling. The house had seemed alive with them in it, almost breathing as they lived their lives. 

There is none of that now. There is only quiet as Hannibal sits in their living room in front of the fire that is slowly burning itself out. No nails on hardwood, no music. It is the loudest silence he has ever endured. It is the kind of silence that screams that something or someone is missing, the kind of silence that is thick and heavy with a weight that will never lift itself away. 

The silence screams for Will. Hannibal wishes he could scream along with it. 

~~~~~~

_ “It’s not as ostentatious as I would have expected,” Will says as they cross the threshold of the little house that Hannibal had purchased during one of their dockings in the Caribbean.  _

_ “It was my penchant for the finer things that got me found out the last time,” Hannibal responds, shouldering the door shut and placing his bags down in the foyer. “I hope to avoid that same fate here, with you.”  _

_ “I’m glad,” Will says dryly. “I wouldn’t want all of my shirtless sailing to go to waste because you can’t contain yourself over some cheeses now, would I?”  _

_ “I cannot make any promises about cheeses, but I can assure you that none of your shirtless sailing went in any way to waste.”  _

_ Will laughs and presses a quick kiss to his cheekbone before turning to go back out to the car to retrieve his own items. Hannibal stands frozen in the foyer. The kiss on his cheek still burns. _

~~~~~~

_ It doesn’t take long for Will to come home with a dog. Or two.  _

_ The first is a medium-sized, shepherd looking thing, with ears slightly too big for her head, a ruff of brown and black fur around her neck, and a tail curling over her back. She has one blue eye and one brown. Will says she has “crazy eyes.”  _

_ He calls her Abigail.  _

_ The second is a blue and white pit bull, with a blocky, square head and a face that maintains a perpetual, happy grin. Will brings Hannibal a piece of paper with an address and a phone number and an absolutely murderous look in his eyes.  _

_ “This guy was kicking a dog outside of the garage. I told him I’d take the dog, but he said he needed to ‘get some stuff sorted out first.’ So I told him to give me his information so I could come by later.” He doesn’t need to finish his thought. They can basically read each other’s minds now.  _

_ Two days later, Will is sitting in the back of a rented car while Hannibal drives them home, trying to coax the terrified creature into taking a bit of “beef.” Hannibal sneaks glances at Will in the rearview mirror occasionally, feeling his heart swell as he watches him singularly focused on getting the skinny dog to trust him. His heart nearly bursts when the dog finally takes the offering and Will coos endless praise to him.  _

_ Abigail doesn’t really know what to make of their latest edition, and it seems the feeling is mutual. Eventually, though, they become attached at the hip, frolicking about on their extensive property, chasing the wildlife, and being general menaces in the kitchen. _

_ He ends up with the full name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, courtesy of Hannibal.  _

_ They call him Jack, for short.  _

_ ~~~~~~ _

_ Will knows how to dance. This surprises Hannibal, if for no other reason than he doesn’t think that Will would have had an occasion to learn. _

_ “I’m glad to know that I still have my secrets,” Will says as he peruses the selection of LPs that Hannibal has been slowly collecting over the past several months. He selects one and places it on the record player. Dean Martin’s mellow croon soon fills the air. He holds out his hand. “Come here, Baby.”  _

_ Hannibal takes his hand and lets himself be led, following Will’s lead as he steers them around the edges of the area rug.  _

_ “You always surprise me, Mylimasis,” he says. “I could never predict you.” The world flips on its head as Will dips him back.  _

_ “I have to keep you on your toes somehow. I can’t be getting too complicit while living with Hannibal the Cannibal.” He kisses him quickly before bringing Hannibal back up and leading him around again. _

_ In the end, they end up swaying in the middle of their living room. The dogs are curled up in front of the fire, and rain beats against the windows. _

Blue moon,

You knew just what I was there for,

You heard me sayin’ a prayer for,

Someone I really could care for.

And then there suddenly,

Appeared before me,

The only one my arms,

Could ever hold.

I heard somebody whisper,

Please adore me.

When I looked, 

The moon had turned,

To gold. 

~~~~~~

_ It only takes them a few months before they start hunting again, but they wait a year before Hannibal takes Will to the opera. Another year before they buy season passes. Another year before Hannibal hosts a small dinner party.  _

_ They get legally married (under their false names, of course) after five years. Hannibal finally gets to take Will to Florence for their honeymoon. They kill once in Italy, for old times sake.  _

_ Five years becomes seven, then nine, then ten. Their social circle grows, but remains of a manageable size. Can’t draw too much attention to yourself when you and your husband once topped the FBI’s Most Wanted list.  _

_ They like to lay in bed late on Sundays, watching the sun rise through the bay windows covering one side of their room, barely leaving to get breakfast before burrowing under the covers again. Eventually, one of them has to get up to let the dogs out - only Jack is left from their original two now, and he is joined by a chocolate lab named Ghirardelli and her littermate, a yellow lab named Beebee.  _

_ Sometimes Hannibal waits for their whole lives to come crashing down on them. It doesn’t seem real. He had wanted Will for so long, had turned himself in, had put himself in prison for him, had killed and maimed for him, and now he was his, in every sense. His husband, his lover, his partner-in-crime, his friend. His everything. His whole life. His soul mate. Very often it hurt Hannibal, how much he loved WIll. It would be his undoing, he knew. They had made their homes in each other’s souls and there was no getting out. Love is funny like that. _

_ Of course, as the saying goes, “Nothing gold can stay.”  _

~~~~~~

_ In an irony of ironies, it was his brain that betrayed Will in the end. Glioblastoma. Aggressive, debilitating, with no decent treatments and even worse outcomes. Hannibal could only watch as Will refused all but perfunctory treatments, could only watch as the love of his life deteriorated. Will liked to cook on the weekends. Towards the end, he could barely get to the kitchen. _

_ That night he asked the worst of Hannibal. In some sick, twisted joke of the universe, here he was, almost an exact mirror of Jack Crawford, caught between a rock and a hard place, fate forcing him to lose the most precious thing in the world. But he never could deny Will anything.  _

_ He set everything up to happen slowly, so they could fall asleep together one last time, so Hannibal could pretend that this was just a normal night, and that he would wake to Will groaning at the dogs to stop barking, that he would be there soon. Will took his hand in his as he lay next to him. _

_ “I love you, Sweetheart.” _

_ “Aš tave myliu, Mylimasis.”  _

_ Will was gone in the morning.  _

_ Hannibal wished to follow him.  _

~~~~~~

Twenty years with Will was more than Hannibal knew he deserved. He didn’t really believe that there was a God - at least, not in the sense that an all powerful deity would concern themselves with the follies of a single man - but Will being taken from him felt like a divine intervention, if ever there was one. And this one was particularly horrid. 

He makes himself wait a year. A year for their social circle to grieve, to offer him condolences that would do nothing. He can’t even find it in himself to kill those he may consider rude. 

And now he sits in their living room. There are no more dogs, no nails on the hardwood. No sounds of cooking from the kitchen. 

No Will. 

Hannibal nurses a glass of wine as the fire burns low. The vial of morphine and a syringe sit next to him, maddeningly innocuous. His letters have been sent. An email sits on his computer, ready to be delivered on a delay. A spare key rests under the doormat. 

He drains the wine and turns to the table next to him. The fire finally burns out.

The house is quiet now.

**Author's Note:**

> So...I told my discord server that I wanted to write something soul destroying and I think I just destroyed my own soul, so. I love writing stupidly in love Hannibal, because he is stupidly in love, but I also think that he loves Will so deeply that they can't live without each other (and Bedelia agrees with me). 
> 
> Hit me up on my socials  
> Tumblr Main: twink-luke-skywalker  
> Hamilton/Am Rev shitposting tumbr: slutshame-alexanderhamilton  
> Discord: sad_bi_cowboy


End file.
